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THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
by Glenn Meade
Hodder & Stoughton, August 2006
576 pages
19.99 GBP
ISBN: 0340835427


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE feels like a mad rush around some of the places Glenn Meade has been on his holidays! Oh, and amidst the gallivanting off to Paris and Turkey, there's a serial killer on the loose.

Kate Moran is an FBI agent. The day before she is due to marry her fiancé David, he and his 12-year-old daughter Megan are murdered by Constantine Gamal, a serial killer obsessed by black magic. Kate tracks him down and Gamal is sentenced to death. Just before the execution he tells her he'll return and destroy her.

When the killings start up again, it's assumed that there's a copycat killer on the loose – or did Gamal somehow survive the supposedly lethal injection?

Kate is assigned to the case and it turns into a trip at breakneck speed round the US, Paris and Turkey (at least we don't get to see Meade's holiday photos!) with a sadistic and deranged killer either one step ahead or two steps behind her.

Meade – an Irishman writing American – is a pretty good storyteller, and I kept reading avidly to find out what happened. At times, though, I felt he was treading ground that's been done many times before. And the book in places felt like an excuse for some femjep, with a handsome man waiting in the wings to whisk Kate off into the sunset.

There are some genuinely tense and creepy scenes – Kate's mysterious night-time phonecalls, the catacombs in Paris and the denouement in the States – but the book could have done with losing at least 150 pages to maintain the pace. Meade ties his strands in neatly enough, but there's one twist too many at the end. And the subplots with Kate's drunken brother Frank and with her obsessed colleague Stone feel over-played.

The whole book strains credulity, but it's a definitely a page-turner. There's a gothic horror feel to it, although it does at times threaten to teeter into romantic suspense territory. You know, it would be OK to write a book where the female main character doesn't need Mr Right to save her.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, October 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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